Ferocious wind slams into the sides of homes. The combination of the wind and rain knock down thousands of trees, damaging people’s homes where they’ve made years worth of memories. Now those memories are going to cost thousands of dollars to repair, if they get to keep them. Aggressive storms, which are on the rise in Nebraska, are a result of climate change that’s only continuing to worsen.
Climate change has been becoming more and more of a problem in recent years. According to studies done by UNL, the rate of warming in Nebraska has nearly doubled over the last 30 years. This new warming and change in the environment has been negatively affecting Nebraska recently, especially in events like flooding.
“Just consider that Omaha has had three ‘100 flood (rain) events’ in six weeks this year,” Nebraska Sierra Club Energy Committee Chair David Corbin said. “In other words, these events are only supposed to happen once in a hundred years, but we had three in six weeks. Climate change has increased extreme heat events and heavy precipitation events.”
One specific way Bellevue has been affected by climate change recently is harsh storms. One bad storm happened on July 31 of this year, which had 90 miles per hour wind and over $34 million in destruction to the Bellevue community. This destroyed many people’s homes and neighborhoods, including students like senior Carter Acosta.
“It was windy, and we live in a neighborhood with a lot of trees around us so a lot of our neighbors’ trees and our trees kind of just exploded with all the wind, blew over a bunch of our signs,” Acosta said. “It ruined a lot of our cars by just blowing limbs onto them.”
In addition to larger storms, Nebraska has been getting hotter. Nebraska’s temperature has been on the rise for some time, and according to UNL studies, Nebraska is projected to be 4 degrees warmer by 2050. The extreme heat affects everyone in general, but especially certain parts of the population, such as elderly people. Some people even leave the state just to experience relief from the heat.
“It’s definitely made it a lot harder to go enjoy outside, especially here,” Acosta said. “I mean, it’s gotten to the point where we haven’t been here outside as much as summer, and then we’ve gone to Colorad, so it’s just causing us to travel a whole lot more, which is fun, but I’d rather like be able to come outside here and still have a good time without actually boiling.”
The heat is affecting sports, too. Athletes with health conditions are at more risk, but all athletes can be affected. For summer sports, the heat is affecting athletes, but also to be taken into consideration are winter sports, like skiing and snowboarding, which the lack of coldness and snow can over time eliminate their sports.
“Extreme heat and air pollution put athletes at increased health risks,” Corbin said. “There is more and more concern about the heat trapping aspects of artificial turf. This can contribute to more heat strokes. In addition, new guidelines for water breaks and rest breaks are being adopted to help protect athletes. Winter sport athletes are increasingly concerned about the decreases in snow cover.”
Students in outdoor sports have been limited by having to practice inside when the weather is too hot. It’s become common enough that students are having to get used to the indoors instead of usual practices outside, like for cross country junior Aiden Lindensmith.
“The heat has been very intense, so intense that on Monday [August 26] we were in a code ‘black’ where we had to practice inside and end an hour earlier than usual,” Lindensmith said. “However, on days that aren’t too hot to stay inside it has helped us acclimate to the weather helping us adjust and get better as a team.”
Some students don’t know a lot about climate change, or that certain things are effects of climate change. According to the National Education Association, nearly 60% of teachers don’t educate on climate change, either because they don’t feel qualified enough, or it doesn’t fit into their lessons.
“I don’t know specifics, I know the broad strokes obviously, like storms are going to get bigger and more violent, last longer, but I don’t know exactly what causes that,” Acosta said.
There is much evidence that climate change rocks the community. But the reason climate change exists is that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels fill the atmosphere, trapping heat from the sun and raising our temperatures. Some students do understand the basics of climate change, and what’s causing this big problem.
“I know a good amount about climate change and how it has been affecting the people around me,” Lindensmith said. “Climate change is mostly caused by us from the release of fossil fuels and greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide, which not only heats up the planet but also causes things like droughts and water scarcity. This can really be a problem because without food and water we will have an extremely hard time living.”
While climate change is causing damage to the community, there are some things being done to prevent future damage. For example, a flood that happened in the community five years ago is still affecting Bellevue today, but measures are in place to prevent some damage in the next big flood.
“Well, Bellevue, and in particular Offutt AFB, experienced very significant flood damage during the 2019 flood,” Corbin said. “The cost of the damage was about $700 million. Some of the rebuilding is still going on. Increased flood control efforts have been necessary to protect from the future expected major rain events.”
At the end of the day, climate change is an issue that will continue to get worse and worse over the years. Despite this fact, people can still find ways to enjoy the outdoors and the activities they love doing.
“I really enjoy the hard work that comes from cross-country, I feel more motivated to run on my own time, always trying to get better and run faster times,” Lindensmith said. “Running goes into almost everything you do.”
